


burnin' up

by starkravingcap



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Chicken Pox, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 17:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkravingcap/pseuds/starkravingcap
Summary: She’s lying on her back on John’s bed, the silk sheets damp under her feverish body. All her life, Rook has been pretty healthy, decently resilient, but this — this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. She feels like she’s been run over by a truck, if that truck were also equipped with tires made from tiny little needles. There’s a blister in the crease of her armpit that she’s pretty sure is going to kill her if she doesn’t dig her nails in and scratch. If she weren’t enveloped in the comfort provided by John’s ranch, Rook is pretty sure she’d be dead in a ditch somewhere by now.





	burnin' up

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr prompt: "I'll check up on you in a bit."

“You know,” John says easily, “for the woman with the world's worst luck, I'm amazed that you didn't get chickenpox sooner.”

“Go away.”

For a few precious seconds, everything seems almost normal, save for the fever and the itching and the burning behind Rook’s tired eyes. She closes them tight against the light streaming in from the window in John’s bedroom and brings the covers up around her ears.

She’s lying on her back on John’s bed, the silk sheets damp under her feverish body. All her life, Rook has been pretty healthy, decently resilient, but _this_ — this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. She feels like she’s been run over by a truck, if that truck were also equipped with tires made from tiny little needles. There’s a blister in the crease of her armpit that she’s pretty sure is going to kill her if she doesn’t dig her nails in and _scratch_. If she weren’t enveloped in the comfort provided by John’s ranch, Rook is pretty sure she’d be dead in a ditch somewhere by now.

“Don’t scratch,” John scolds, catching the way she gingerly moves her arm up, nails at the ready.

“_Stop talking.”_

There’s a part of Rook that does appreciate John being there, a part that appreciates the unexpected mother hen inside him that makes him a surprisingly good caregiver.

The rest of her, though, wants John gone. The rest of her wants the Earth to be sucked into a black hole and turned into galactic spaghetti. It deserves it.

She’s thirty years old. She deserves better than leaky, crusty blisters.

The bed dips beside her. Rook keeps her eyes closed the whole time, even as John sighs heavily and places something cool and damp against her forehead.

“Do try to stay alive, darling. I’ve pined for you too long to have it end like this.”

“You are not making this any better.”

“Of course I am. You could be sick, miserable, and _alone_ right now, instead of just sick and miserable.”

“Stop touching me,” Rook grumbles. She reaches up and and swats in the general direction of John’s hand. The cloth on her forehead stays disappointingly stationary. “Stop it. Go away.”

Rook feels the blankets being tugged away from her, and she lets out a pitiful whine, scrabbling to get them back. John keeps pulling them down until they pool around her middle. Her skin is so warm, but without the blanket, she’s freezing.

“Give me back my blankets.”

“Do you want those blisters to scar?” John chides, “Come on. Open those eyes.”

Against her better judgement, Rook opens a single eyelid and regrets it immediately. John is too close to her face, smiling pleasantly and waving a pink bottle at her. She groans and closes her eyes again, rolling onto her stomach and as far as she can risk it without falling out of John’s cozy bed.

“_No._ No calamine lotion.”

“_Yes_,” John counters. His voice is stern. “Shirt off, darling. Roll over.”

The commands just make her more miserable. Rook’s managed to lose the cloth John had placed on her forehead during her struggle to get away. She wishes she hadn’t — the coolness against her hot skin had been too refreshing to deny.

“Buy me dinner first.”

_“Rook."_

_“John."_

A beat of silence passes, and for a minute Rook thinks that maybe she’s won — but things are rarely ever that easy with John, and she counts the seconds as they slip by until suddenly she feels hands on the fabric of her shirt. Rook squirms away, heart beating wildly, and curls up into the covers.

John sighs, but his hands linger close.

"You are incorrigible. Do you know that?"

"I may have heard it once or twice before."

"You're going to get worse if you don't take care of yourself, my dear."

Rook squeezes her eyes shut again, reveling in the way it soothes the familiar burn behind her lids, and tries to even her breathing. She’s closer with John than she’d ever like to admit, but she doesn’t like being touched without warning. Especially not when she feels like this.

"You sound like my mother."

"No, actually," John argues, resigned. "You‘d probably listen to your mother. Will you please let me put this on your back? It'll help the itching."

"If I say yes," Rook’s voice is tentative. Somehow, she has a feeling that no matter how she phrases it, her next sentence isn’t going to garner much enthusiasm, "will you leave me alone?"

The room, quiet even _with_ John struggling to to get to her cooperate, somehow grows more silent. Rook pops one eye open and turns her head in his direction.

"Yes. I'll leave," John says eventually.

He’s an incredibly gifted faker, a talent Rook thinks he learned as a lawyer, but he’s not _that_ good. She can sense the shift in John’s voice, the disappointment and hurt colouring his words.

For some reason, she cannot stop getting herself into trouble.

Begrudgingly, Rook kicks back the blankets and props herself up long enough to tug her shirt off. She never wears a bra to sleep, but couldn’t now even if she wanted to; the band presses against a line of painful, itchy blisters. Rook settles back down onto her stomach and waits.

Guilt starts to fester in the recesses of her brain. She doesn’t _enjoy_ upsetting John, isn’t _trying_ to, but nothing about their relationship has ever been easy.

The bed jiggles slightly as John shifts into a more comfortable position. Her breath rushes from her lungs as the first swipe of cold lotion hits her skin. Rook doesn’t know why she anticipated a warning first — she doesn’t _deserve_ one — but now she’s shivering again, fever jolted into action again by the shock.

The silence gets worse the longer John sits behind her, spreading the lotion over her back. It _is_ a pleasant relief from the itching - Rook is certain her back looks akin to a war zone, artillery craters dug into her skin with the blunt edges of her fingernails. The longer they spend there, the less the cold bothers her, the calamine at odds with her overheated skin. Eventually, John shifts and moves his hands, and before Rook knows it, he’s off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

"John?" she calls, feeling defeated and more miserable than ever. She listens patiently for the sound of footsteps.

When John comes back to stand in the doorway, he’s drying his hands on a towel and staring at her, his face blank.

"Will you stay?" Rook asks, insides twisting uncomfortably. "I mean, in here. With me."

"Didn't you just tell me to leave?"

She holds her expression, trying not to cringe. She’s going to lose this battle, but at least she can choose how. Not everyone gets that option.

"I may have."

"No, I distinctly remember you asking me to leave."

"John—"

"How did you put it? 'If I say yes will you leave me alone'?"

"Will you believe me if I say I'm sorry?"

John stays put, letting her stew in her own guilt for a few solid seconds of silence. He finishes drying his hands, then folds the towel neatly into quarters. Rook wonders if he’s ever going to speak.

"Being sick is not an excuse to be extra ruthless, Deputy," John says eventually, tossing the towel into the hamper in the corner of the bedroom. He takes lazy steps towards the bed and sinks down next to Rook slowly, curling on his side next to her.

"My ruthlessness is my best quality," Rook argues. He’s so close and his skin is so warm, and she just wants to wrap her aching body around him to leech his heat. “How else do you think I got you to fall for me?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” John says, managing a rather impressive roll of his eyes. “But I’m almost certain it had nothing to do with this awful attitude you’ve developed.”

Rook snorts, burying her face deeper into the fabric of the pillow. John shuffles a little closer and she has to admit — it‘s _nice_. She’s sick and miserable and feverish and _freezing_, but it’s nice.

"Love you," Rook says, stumbling over the words clumsily. She’s never been very good at expressing her emotions. "Sorry I'm like this."

John frowns and leans forward to press his lips to hers. His hand comes up to Rook's face, thumb running along her cheekbone.

“A man can’t have everything,” he murmurs as he pulls away. “I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t handle a little mood swing every now and then.”

“I know,” Rook says quietly. John kisses her again, on her nose this time, and offers her a soft smile. “You shouldn’t do that. You’ll get sick.”

“Me? No, darling, I had chickenpox as a child. You’re decidedly late to the party.”

“Very funny.”

The calamine lotion is working, she thinks. Her back isn’t nearly as itchy as it had been earlier that morning when John had brought her tea and a breakfast that she had more or less ignored. It’s not a cure, but it is a bit of relief, and Rook thinks she’ll take what she can get.

“Are you tired?” John asks quietly.

Rook doesn’t know when she closed her eyes. John’s voice jolts her back to the present, but she keeps her lids shut.

“Mm,” she mumbles. John moves, and Rook cracks open one tired eye to see what he’s doing. “Where’re you going?”

Fingertips brush across her cheek, and her open eye flutters shut again. She feels the soft press of John’s lips against her sweaty forehead.

“Just downstairs,” he assures her. His voice is gentle and calming. “You need to rest. I’ll check up on you in a bit.”

“‘Kay,” Rook stumbles over the words, her mouth dry and thick as consciousness starts to crumble away from her. “Thank you.”

She hopes he understands how much she means it.

**Author's Note:**

> someone feed this poor girl some chicken soup!!!!
> 
> follow me on [ tumblr](https://softseeds.tumblr.com/) for more nonsense, and maybe even request a thing!


End file.
